New Franklin Register

The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) is planning sweeping changes to the ways New Yorkers will receive their electricity. Huge central generating plants will be phased out, and much of the electricity supplies of the future will be locally generated by smaller facilities scattered across the countryside; these local generators are known as Distributed Generation (DG) resources. The spreading out of generation across the State will reduce the risks and inefficiencies of central generation and grid distribution; the grid will still exist, shuttling energy where it is needed, but DG will improve the grid’s efficiency by geographically matching electric supplies with electric demands.

The current grid will be subdivided into a patchwork of microgrids. All of the customers on a microgrid will share and rely upon the DG resources within their microgrid; when they need more power than they can generate locally, they will be able to buy power from the main grid. If the DG resources on a microgrid produce more power than can be used locally, the microgrid will be able to sell its surplus into the main grid. If the main grid fails, the DG resources on each microgrid must be capable of supplying enough power to keep the microgrid functioning (though possibly at a reduced level of power.) Continue reading…

Santa and Mrs. Claus will come to the Fire Hall at 6:00 P.M. Free pictures taken of children with Santa and Mrs. Claus, plus hot chocolate and cookies, and a craft gift.

Mayor Tom Briggs has agreed to organize the Christmas Stroll house tour. We are looking for homeowners willing to open their decorated house for viewing. The tour is run in an open house, self -guided format. If interested, call Tom at 829-6885. If you would like to be on the tour but need help getting your house ready, we might be able to get volunteers to help.

If you have an event you would like to add to the day, please contact Kim Hyzer at 829-8820 or khyzer@frontiernet.net for inclusion in the advertising.

What supporters of pipelines and compressor are missing…

I mentioned some of its findings: compressors emit benzene and formaldehyde which are implicated, respectively, in childhood leukemia and asthma as well as in adult cancers. A member of the audience challenged me, saying that children were already dying of cancer even though we have no compressors. I’m not sure what her point was but I suspect she meant that there is a natural background level of kids getting cancer and asthma and that we opponents of compressors are just a bunch of nervous nellies standing in the way of progress and prosperity. Let’s ignore for the moment the possibility that we can do something about children getting cancer. Instead, let’s look at the purported economic benefits of the proposed gas infrastructure that supporters expect will follow along with the pipeline.

We are all deeply embedded in a society that thrives by exploiting resources while polluting the environment. This is not something we can change overnight nor even in a few decades. Our industrial revolution developed within a history where scarcity was a certainty and abundance a rare blessing. This is still true for most of mankind but we, the fortunate benefactors of the plenty produced by the scientific innovations of the last couple of hundred years, are finally becoming aware, thanks to that same science, of the perils and the high price of the path we are on. We are learning that we can gradually slow the pace of our pillaging of earth’s riches — without going back to living in caves — by continually deepening our knowledge of the ways things work in nature.

With all the coverage of national candidates, you might think that we will be voting for President of the United States this November. However 2015 is an off-year election with only local races for towns and counties. Last year’s atypical local elections were required by the resignation of two councilmen.

One of the problems with living in a rural area is getting accurate weather information. The nearest official weather stations are Binghamton and Monticello, which doesn’t do much for us on top of a hill in Delaware County. So we decided to investigate the possibility of our own weather station.

The simplest and cheapest (free) is a weather rock, but it’s pretty basic and isn’t easy to share.

Another inexpensive item is a 99¢ thermometer. Good if you are standing next to the window where it is mounted, but not much help otherwise.

We wanted a more accurate weather solution, one which could indicate temperature, wind speed and direction, rainfall, and barometric pressure, and ideally send the feed to the internet so everyone interested in the area could benefit. Of course, our budget wasn’t unlimited either, so plunking down $35,000 for a prepackaged solution was out of the question. With all this in mind, our investigation led us to a Davis Vantage Pro 2, plus some additional equipment to allow an easy connection to the internet. Continue reading…

The Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC (TGP) plans to build in Franklin the mid-stream compressor and office buildings for the supply path segment of the Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline. For this facility, they have taken an option to purchase a hundred seventeen acres from the Haneys. This land is mostly north of (uphill of) the proposed route of the pipeline and east of Otego Road. It is two miles above the Village of Franklin and one mile above Village of Otego.

TGP NED supply path mid-station

The compressor building would occupy a ten acre site close to the pipeline, which is near the southern boundary of this property. Access to the site would be from the existing road to the unfinished tower at the northern boundary. Plot plans are expected with the revised Resource Reports in July. In the building, a C85 compressor would be powered by a single 30,000 hp gas turbine, similar to a jet engine. This model Titan 250 is the largest made by Solar Turbines Inc. Every minute it will push a half million standard cubic feet of natural gas through a pipe thirty inches in diameter. Continue reading…